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Canadians’ living standards and the country’s prosperity are worsening
Recently released economic data and fiscal reports point to an unequivocal conclusion: Canada is in decline. Having suffered though “Canada’s Lost Decade” under Justin Trudeau, Canadians are now captive to PM Mark Carney’s designs to manage (and in some cases prompt) that decline with every new law and regulation, and every new twist to the country’s trade relations. It is fact that Canadians’ living standards and the country’s prosperity are worsening under the stewardship of Canada’s global-banker-turned-PM Carney. The current data speaks volumes.
Growth forecasts are cut
After more than a year of Mark Carney at the helm, Canada’s growth forecasts are being cut even lower than those assessed for the country in the Trudeau-era. This week the Canadian Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) released a report that lowered (for a second time in a year) the economic growth forecast for Canada to just 0.9 per cent in 2026, down from its forecast of 1.1 per cent in June, and 1.5 per cent in 2027, down from 1.6 per cent forecast in June. (Last fall the PBO projected economic growth of 1.2 per cent in 2026 and 1.8 per cent in 2027 – but, obviously, that did not age well.) The PBO report echoes the recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) projection that has pegged Canada’s economy to grow by 1.1 per cent in 2026, which is approximately one-third the rate of growth for the global economy, projected to be 3.1 per cent in 2026. The PBO also echoes a Deloitte report on the state of the Canadian economy that projects 0.9 per cent growth in 2026 and 1.6 per cent growth in 2027, citing the negative impact of Canadian trade relations and the uncertainty this creates for Canadian businesses.
Every hour 17 Canadians are filing for bankruptcy
Canadian households are filing for insolvency at the fastest pace since the 2009 economic crisis, with 37,523 consumer insolvencies recorded in the second quarter of 2026. According to a report by the federal government’s Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy the current rate of insolvencies is a 6.9 per cent increase compared to the same quarter last year. It is equivalent to 17 Canadians filing for bankruptcy every hour. The report states, “Many Canadians are managing debt on a reactive basis with rolling balances, making minimum payments, refinancing and using one credit product to service another. These tactics can delay an immediate crisis but do nothing to reduce the underlying amount owed.” Joshua Harris, owner of an Ontario insolvency trustee firm, observed, “Nearly 400 consumer insolvency filings every day is a significant figure, but each filing represents a person or household that may have been struggling for months or even years before reaching that point.”
110,000 jobs lost in two months
Last week Statistics Canada reported that September marked the second straight month of significant job losses across Canada. The country’s economy lost 68,000 positions last month, following a loss of 42,000 jobs in August. The unemployment rate has edged up to 6.5 per cent, back to where it was in January. StatsCan reports that, with September’s decline, Canada has lost a net 41,200 jobs so far this year, compared with a gain of 211,300 in the same period of 2025. The 110,000 jobs lost in two months in Canada is even more striking given that the U.S. added almost 191,000 jobs in the same period.
“We’re normalizing hunger”
Food Banks Canada released its annual report this week and monthly food bank visits across Canada are up nearly 9 per cent this year compared to last. According to Hunger Count 2026 food bank visits have soared to 2.35 million per month in 2026, a 117 per cent increase from 2019. The agency’s CEO Kirstin Beardsley stated, “This is the story of what happens when millions of people are out of options. In the past, most people in Canada could absorb a small financial setback… those days are over. Canada’s bleak new reality is that millions of people are making impossible trade-offs every day as they choose between food or rent.” Radhika Subramanyan, CEO of Hamilton Food Share, made the observation, “The report shows that this is no longer an emergency crisis, this is a sustainable crisis. We used to talk about spikes in hunger and now we’re normalizing hunger and it’s horrifying.” Newmarket-Aurora Ontario MP Sandra Cobena commented “there is no greater indictment of this Liberal government’s economic record” and asked in the House of Commons, “Why after 11 years of this Liberal government honest hard work is no longer enough to provide for your family?”
Inflation accelerates
Statistics Canada reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3.1 per cent (year-over-year) in September, and that followed 3.0 per cent increases in July and August. The federal agency stated that September’s acceleration in prices was driven by higher gasoline prices, which rose by 27.8 per cent in September. Assessing the StatsCan data, RBC reported that “policymakers remain alert to the risk that persistently elevated oil prices lift inflation expectations or generate broader second-round price pressures.” The report cites Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem’s observation that in Canada “the risk that inflation broadens and becomes more persistent has gone up.” It is expected now that the Bank of Canada will be increasing interest rates to wrestle the elevated inflation rate – a move that is sure to provide greater financial stress for Canadians.
Canadians’ economic freedom eroding
In the first full year under Carney’s management, Canada dropped nine spots to 18th place in the international economic openness index, according to a newly released Fraser Institute report. Economic freedom is defined as the amount of choice people have over what they buy, where they work, and whether to start a business. The Institute noted, “Canadians should be worried because when people are less economically free, their standards of living tend to suffer.” In an editorial column, Cory Morgan commented, “Continued Canadian indifference will be costly. A nine-place slide in a single year is not statistical noise. It coincides with a long Canadian pattern of high and rising government claims on national income, layered regulation, and new frictions on cross-border exchange.”
Canada’s fiscal standing continues to worsen
This week the finance minister let it be known that the 2026 Federal Budget will be delivered on November 5th – an announcement that came the very same day that the PBO issued its fall outlook report. The government has positioned its approach as “a plan to make life more affordable and build resilience,” however the Carney-appointed PBO head Annette Ryan’s report cautioned, “Federal spending, borrowing and debt continue to rise amid weaker economic growth” and, at a Senate finance committee meeting, she warned parliamentarians that rising debt-servicing costs could result in the government falling into “a danger zone.” The PBO projects in the next five years, cumulative deficits with the Carney government’s fiscal plan will top $333 billion – and, more alarmingly, federal borrowing will need to rise by $733 billion. In simple language, Mark Carney is set to increase the national debt by a trillion dollars in just 5 years – a feat that rivals the outcomes of Justin Trudeau’s fiscal management. Canadians, who today are paying more than $1 billion of interest payments per week on debt serving charges for the government’s national debt, are being placed in a fiscal straitjacket by the Carney Liberals’ fiscal plan and approach to the economy. Consider that, with the Carney government’s plan, debt servicing will consume almost 1 in 7 dollars of revenue by 2030. To punctuate the country’s deteriorating fiscal standing, in a Globe and Mail interview, Ryan warns Canadians not to be fooled by Carney’s creative accounting that separates out capital expenses from operation costs and books loans to Crown corporations as assets, “This obscures the realities of cash debt and raises questions about whether the current fiscal framework provides a complete and transparent picture of Canada’s fiscal sustainability.”
The current data confirms it is not getting better for Canadians under Mark Carney’s stewardship. Remarkably, Canadians’ living standards and the country’s prosperity are worsening, at an accelerated rate, than when Justin Trudeau was running the show. That’s almost unfathomable – but, again, the data speaks volumes.
This article first appeared in The Niagara Independent and The Hamilton Independent. The By George Journal version above includes additional text and links to source media
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Growth forecasts are cut
After more than a year of Mark Carney at the helm, Canada’s growth forecasts are being cut even lower than those assessed for the country in the Trudeau-era. This week the Canadian Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO) released a report that lowered (for a second time in a year) the economic growth forecast for Canada to just 0.9 per cent in 2026, down from its forecast of 1.1 per cent in June, and 1.5 per cent in 2027, down from 1.6 per cent forecast in June. (Last fall the PBO projected economic growth of 1.2 per cent in 2026 and 1.8 per cent in 2027 – but, obviously, that did not age well.) The PBO report echoes the recent International Monetary Fund (IMF) projection that has pegged Canada’s economy to grow by 1.1 per cent in 2026, which is approximately one-third the rate of growth for the global economy, projected to be 3.1 per cent in 2026. The PBO also echoes a Deloitte report on the state of the Canadian economy that projects 0.9 per cent growth in 2026 and 1.6 per cent growth in 2027, citing the negative impact of Canadian trade relations and the uncertainty this creates for Canadian businesses.
Every hour 17 Canadians are filing for bankruptcy
Canadian households are filing for insolvency at the fastest pace since the 2009 economic crisis, with 37,523 consumer insolvencies recorded in the second quarter of 2026. According to a report by the federal government’s Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy the current rate of insolvencies is a 6.9 per cent increase compared to the same quarter last year. It is equivalent to 17 Canadians filing for bankruptcy every hour. The report states, “Many Canadians are managing debt on a reactive basis with rolling balances, making minimum payments, refinancing and using one credit product to service another. These tactics can delay an immediate crisis but do nothing to reduce the underlying amount owed.” Joshua Harris, owner of an Ontario insolvency trustee firm, observed, “Nearly 400 consumer insolvency filings every day is a significant figure, but each filing represents a person or household that may have been struggling for months or even years before reaching that point.”
110,000 jobs lost in two months
Last week Statistics Canada reported that September marked the second straight month of significant job losses across Canada. The country’s economy lost 68,000 positions last month, following a loss of 42,000 jobs in August. The unemployment rate has edged up to 6.5 per cent, back to where it was in January. StatsCan reports that, with September’s decline, Canada has lost a net 41,200 jobs so far this year, compared with a gain of 211,300 in the same period of 2025. The 110,000 jobs lost in two months in Canada is even more striking given that the U.S. added almost 191,000 jobs in the same period.
“We’re normalizing hunger”
Food Banks Canada released its annual report this week and monthly food bank visits across Canada are up nearly 9 per cent this year compared to last. According to Hunger Count 2026 food bank visits have soared to 2.35 million per month in 2026, a 117 per cent increase from 2019. The agency’s CEO Kirstin Beardsley stated, “This is the story of what happens when millions of people are out of options. In the past, most people in Canada could absorb a small financial setback… those days are over. Canada’s bleak new reality is that millions of people are making impossible trade-offs every day as they choose between food or rent.” Radhika Subramanyan, CEO of Hamilton Food Share, made the observation, “The report shows that this is no longer an emergency crisis, this is a sustainable crisis. We used to talk about spikes in hunger and now we’re normalizing hunger and it’s horrifying.” Newmarket-Aurora Ontario MP Sandra Cobena commented “there is no greater indictment of this Liberal government’s economic record” and asked in the House of Commons, “Why after 11 years of this Liberal government honest hard work is no longer enough to provide for your family?”
Inflation accelerates
Statistics Canada reported that the Consumer Price Index (CPI) rose 3.1 per cent (year-over-year) in September, and that followed 3.0 per cent increases in July and August. The federal agency stated that September’s acceleration in prices was driven by higher gasoline prices, which rose by 27.8 per cent in September. Assessing the StatsCan data, RBC reported that “policymakers remain alert to the risk that persistently elevated oil prices lift inflation expectations or generate broader second-round price pressures.” The report cites Bank of Canada Governor Tiff Macklem’s observation that in Canada “the risk that inflation broadens and becomes more persistent has gone up.” It is expected now that the Bank of Canada will be increasing interest rates to wrestle the elevated inflation rate – a move that is sure to provide greater financial stress for Canadians.
Canadians’ economic freedom eroding
In the first full year under Carney’s management, Canada dropped nine spots to 18th place in the international economic openness index, according to a newly released Fraser Institute report. Economic freedom is defined as the amount of choice people have over what they buy, where they work, and whether to start a business. The Institute noted, “Canadians should be worried because when people are less economically free, their standards of living tend to suffer.” In an editorial column, Cory Morgan commented, “Continued Canadian indifference will be costly. A nine-place slide in a single year is not statistical noise. It coincides with a long Canadian pattern of high and rising government claims on national income, layered regulation, and new frictions on cross-border exchange.”
Canada’s fiscal standing continues to worsen
This week the finance minister let it be known that the 2026 Federal Budget will be delivered on November 5th – an announcement that came the very same day that the PBO issued its fall outlook report. The government has positioned its approach as “a plan to make life more affordable and build resilience,” however the Carney-appointed PBO head Annette Ryan’s report cautioned, “Federal spending, borrowing and debt continue to rise amid weaker economic growth” and, at a Senate finance committee meeting, she warned parliamentarians that rising debt-servicing costs could result in the government falling into “a danger zone.” The PBO projects in the next five years, cumulative deficits with the Carney government’s fiscal plan will top $333 billion – and, more alarmingly, federal borrowing will need to rise by $733 billion. In simple language, Mark Carney is set to increase the national debt by a trillion dollars in just 5 years – a feat that rivals the outcomes of Justin Trudeau’s fiscal management. Canadians, who today are paying more than $1 billion of interest payments per week on debt serving charges for the government’s national debt, are being placed in a fiscal straitjacket by the Carney Liberals’ fiscal plan and approach to the economy. Consider that, with the Carney government’s plan, debt servicing will consume almost 1 in 7 dollars of revenue by 2030. To punctuate the country’s deteriorating fiscal standing, in a Globe and Mail interview, Ryan warns Canadians not to be fooled by Carney’s creative accounting that separates out capital expenses from operation costs and books loans to Crown corporations as assets, “This obscures the realities of cash debt and raises questions about whether the current fiscal framework provides a complete and transparent picture of Canada’s fiscal sustainability.”
The current data confirms it is not getting better for Canadians under Mark Carney’s stewardship. Remarkably, Canadians’ living standards and the country’s prosperity are worsening, at an accelerated rate, than when Justin Trudeau was running the show. That’s almost unfathomable – but, again, the data speaks volumes.
